EVERETT—After two years of thoughtful development, Snohomish County is releasing to the public its Law & Justice Dashboard. This dashboard is one of the first in the nation to combine both law enforcement and prosecutor data to provide users a better understanding of affected persons’ involvement in the law and justice system.
“It has taken tremendous amount of work behind the scenes to reach this point, and we are very excited to share the dashboard with the public” states Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Jason Cummings.
The dashboard is the result of a two-year collaboration of the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, the county’s IT department, and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The project would not have been possible without support from Microsoft, who provided a grant to the City University of New York’s Institute for State and Local Governance to provide a diagnostic review of the available data and the essential framework for the public facing dashboard.
“The launch of the Law and Justice Dashboard marks an important step toward advancing transparency and fairness in Snohomish County criminal legal system,” said Kevin Miller, Microsoft’s Justice Reform Initiative Lead. “We commend the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and collaborating agencies’ commitment to harnessing the power of data to guide informed policy and practice and look forward to watching the impact of this work unfold.”
While many jurisdictions across the country have developed dashboards that are hosted by either a law enforcement agency or a prosecutor’s office, Snohomish County chose to combine data from both sides of the law and justice system to provide a more comprehensive overall understanding.
“Clear, comprehensive and accessible data means everyone from prosecutors to the public can better understand their criminal legal systems,” said Benjamin Estep, Research Project Director for CUNY’s Institute for State and Local Governance.
“This dashboard is a big step forward in tracking how these systems are functioning and being proactive about ensuring they are best serving the community,” states Estep.
Transparent, up-to-date data is key for law enforcement, policymakers, and the public to understand and monitor trends. The dashboard also utilizes data regarding race, age, and gender to assist criminal justice partners and decision makers to better identify how people are processed within the system.
“Former Prosecuting Attorney Adam Cornell was instrumental in lining up our external partners to get the dashboard going,” says Cummings.
The initial development of the idea to develop a dashboard began in 2021 during the Adam Cornell’s Administration. The dashboard may be accessed through the following link and is located on the county’s webpage: https://snohomishcountywa.gov/202.
Below are a few other Snohomish County Dashboards:
SOURCE: Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office with addition of the other county dashboards by the Lynnwood Times
Author: Lynnwood Times Staff
